American Studies

Introduction

The American Studies Program is designed to provide students with a broad, yet deep, education about the United States. To ensure breadth, students are required to take an interdisciplinary core course that ranges widely both with respect to the themes covered and disciplinary perspectives applied. As well, the Program offers a wide selection of courses from participating departments and programs in the Faculty, giving students broad exposure to fundamental themes of American life. To ensure depth, the American Studies Program relies heavily on upper level courses, including its own capstone seminars at the 400-level.

American Studies Programs

American Studies ProgramsAmerican Studies Major (Arts Program)

Enrolment in this program requires the completion of 4.0 courses.

6.5 full courses or equivalent (FCEs), specified as follows:

1. Students must take one of the 200-level gateway survey courses in English, History, Geography, or Political Science indicated below.

5. Overall, students must take 1.0 FCEs in at least three disciplines (and American Studies can be one of them).

6. At least 2.0 of the student’s 6.5 courses must be at the 300+ level or above.

First year:

Students are encouraged to take any pre-requisites for the 200-level courses, and/or enrol directly in USA200H1 as a first year student. Of the required second-year disciplinary survey courses only one, POL203Y1, has a pre-requisite; students interested in politics, therefore, should take one full POL course, a pre-req for POL203Y1. Other recommended courses at the first year level include: HIS106Y1 Natives, Settlers and Slaves: Colonizing the Americas, 1492-1804.

Second year:USA200H1 Introduction to American Studies (recommended)HIS271Y1 History of the United States since 1607 (or)ENG250Y1 American Literature (or)GGR240H1/GGR254H1 Historical Geography of North America/Geography USA (or)POL203Y1 U.S. Government and Politics

Third year and Fourth Year: USA300H1 plus at least 1.0 300+ or above series courses from the list below, as well as .5 courses in American Studies at the 400+ level.

American Studies Minor (Arts Program)

Enrolment in this program requires the completion of 4.0 courses.

(4 full courses or their equivalent, including at least one 300+ series course in at least two disciplines)

NOTE: Other 300+ series courses with American content may be allowed; students should seek early approval of program credit for such courses.

Courses eligible for program credit

Courses eligible for program credit include those appearing below. Please note that some of these courses have pre-requisites; in all cases, and for updates on courses being offered, check individual department/program websites. Other 300+ series courses with American content may be allowed; students should seek early approval of program credit for such courses.

American StudiesUSA200H1 Introduction to American StudiesUSA300H1 Theories and Methods in American Studies (req.)USA310H1 Approaches to American StudiesUSA400H1 Topics in American Studies IUSA401H1 Topics in American Studies IIUSA494H1 Independent StudiesUSA495Y1 Independent Studies

Aboriginal StudiesABS302H1 Aboriginal Representation in the Mass Media and SocietyABS341H1 North American Indigenous Theatre

AnthropologyANT357H1 Cultures of U.S. EmpireANT365H1 Native America and the State

Cinema StudiesINI225Y1 American Popular Film Since 1970 INI322Y1 Avant-Garde and Experimental Film INI324Y1 American Filmmaking in the Studio EraINI383H1 The Origins of the Animation Industry, 1900-1950: A Technosocial History INI398H1 Special Topics in Cinema Studies (depending on topic)INI398H1S Special Topics in Cinema Studies (depending on topic)INI429H1 The Revolution Will/Will Not Be TelevisedINI460H1F Film Noir INI463H1 Early Cinema INI467H1 American Independent FilmINI482Y1/483H1/484H1 Advanced Studies in Cinema (depending on topic)

DramaDRM310H1 Contemporary American Drama

EconomicsECO307H1 Issues in Canadian and US Economic History to 1914 ECO423H1S Topics in North American Economic History

GeographyGGR336H1 Urban Historical Geography of North AmericaGGR339H1 Urban Geography, Planning and Political Processes

HistoryHIS202H1 Gender, Race and ScienceHIS296Y1 Black FreedomHIS316H1 History of Advertising HIS343Y1 History of Modern Espionage HIS365H1 History of the Great Lakes RegionHIS366H1 Aboriginal Peoples of the Great Lakes from 1815 to the PresentHIS369H1 Aboriginal Peoples of the Great Lakes from 1500 HIS370H1 The Black Experience in the United States Since the Civil War HIS372H1 United States & Great DepressionHIS374H1 American Consumerism - The Beginnings HIS376H1 The United States: Now – and ThenHIS377H1 20th-Century American Foreign Relations HIS378H1 America in the 1960sHIS389H1 Topics in History (depending on topic)HIS393H1 Slavery and the American South HIS401H1 History of the Cold WarHIS404H1 Topics in North American Environmental History HIS408Y1 History of Race Relations in AmericaHIS436H1 Culture and the Cold WarHIS447H1 Sex, Money, and American EmpireHIS471H1 United States and GlobalizationHIS473Y1 The United States and Asia in the Cold War Era HIS475H1 Race, Segregation, and Protest: South Africa and the United StatesHIS476H1 Voices from Black AmericaHIS478H1 Hellhound on my Trail: Living the Blues in the Mississippi Delta, 1890-1945 HIS479H1 American Foreign Policy Since World War IIHIS484H1 The Car in North American History HIS487H1 Animal and Human Rights in the Anglo-American Culture

MusicMUS306HI Popular Music in North America

Political SciencePOL319Y1 American Constitutional Law POL326Y1 United States Foreign Policy POL349H1S Globalization and Urban PoliticsPOL420Y1 Elements of United States Foreign PolicyPOL433H1 Topics in United States Government and Politics: Presidential Politics

ReligionRLG315H1 Rites of Passage RLG442H1 North American Religions

Victoria CollegeVIC132H1 The USA in the Cold WarVIC130H1 Movies, Madness and the Modern Condition

American Studies Courses

First Year Seminars

The 199Y1 and 199H1 seminars are designed to provide the opportunity to work closely with an instructor in a class of no more than twenty-four students. These interactive seminars are intended to stimulate the students’ curiosity and provide an opportunity to get to know a member of the professorial staff in a seminar environment during the first year of study. Details here.

USA200H1 Introduction to American Studies[24L]

An interdisciplinary introduction to the study of the United States and to the field of American Studies. Drawing from a variety of source materials ranging from political and literary to visual culture and material artifacts, this course examines the politics, history and culture of the U.S. A major emphasis will be learning to analyze primary sources.

Distribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)

USA300H1 Theories and Methods in American Studies (formerly USA300Y1)[24L]

This course, required for majors and minors but open to all who have met the pre-req, explores a range of approaches to the field of American Studies. The course is organized around the decade of the 1920s, a period of tremendous social, political, and economic change as the U.S. emerged from WWI as a global industrial power and Americans debated competing ideas about the meanings of modernity. The course looks at the 1920s through a series of thematic weeks, drawing from interdisciplinary primary and secondary sources, such as black migration and urban modernities; gender, sexuality, and global beauty culture; immigration policy and racial formation; modernism in the visual arts; Prohibition and gangsters; market empires and global commodity chains. Students will be introduced to some of the many theories and methods that have animated the field of American Studies, including historical methods; formal analysis of visual and literary texts; commodity chain analysis; race, commodity, gender, diaspora and affect.

Prerequisite:
HIS271Y1/ENG250Y1/POL203Y1/GGR240H1/GGR254H1Exclusion:
USA300Y1Distribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)

USA310H1 Approaches to American Studies[24L]

Topic for Spring 2011: Technology and American LifeThis course examines the place of technology in American culture from the 18th-century to the present, with a particular focus on the entanglement of commerce (money; markets; manufacturing; industry) with life itself (humans; animals; plants and microbes). What counts as an American life? How have different kinds of life been granted different kinds of value, both historically but also by scholars in the interdisciplinary field of American Studies? How has technology figured in the production, management, taking and (more recently) banking of American life? And how has American life (in all its varied forms and scales) shaped the history of technology? Readings pair recent scholarship with literary and theoretical texts. Key sites of study range from slave pens, iron mills, farms, factories, hospitals and prisons to nuclear test sites, dead malls, toxic ghost towns and organ banks.

Prerequisite:
At least two courses from the American Studies list or USA300H1Distribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: None

USA400H1 Topics in American Studies I[24S]

Topic for fall 2010: Taking Shots at the Man: Assassination and the American PresidencyThis interdisciplinary seminar focuses on political violence directed at the U.S. President from the Civil War to the War on Terror. At key historical moments of national crisis, the office of the Presidency has repeatedly become a target of assassination. While much can be learned by investigating the grievances articulated by assassins, interpretations of their explanations shifted considerably as their acts reverberated through American culture. Public debates surrounding these acts of violence have been framed by historically-specific notions of race, class, gender, and mental fitness. In this class we will cover several assassination attempts from 1865-2001 through interwoven themes of power and memory. As a capstone course, students will be required to pursue original research on a topic of their choice, and write a 25 page research paper.

Prerequisite:
At least two courses from the American Studies listDistribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: None

USA401H1 Topics in American Studies II[24S]

In depth examination of specific themes relating to American Studies.

Prerequisite:
At least two courses from the American Studies listDistribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: None

USA494H1 Independent Studies

Independent Studies

Distribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: None

USA495Y1 Independent Studies

Independent Studies

Distribution Requirement Status: This is a Humanities or Social Science courseBreadth Requirement: None